“It’s for the best. Women always leave you in the end anyway. What’s done is done. Leave it alone, Jared.”
Jared’s lips curled into a mocking grin, and I knew he was about to let me have it. We were stepping into the ring for round number four million or so, for the same fight. “Just because Elizabeth couldn’t handle things doesn’t mean that other people can’t, you know? Especially people who know you now. It’s completely different than it used to be.”
“No, it’s not different. It’s never going to be, not while Destitute exists and I’m still in it. She begged me not to leave San Diego, man. She begged me to stay. She told me straight up that if I left, I was choosing the band. This is me living with that choice.”
Jared’s eyes turned to ice, and his mouth set in a grim line. “Do you regret it?”
“You want the truth, or do you want me to give you the answer that you wanna hear?” I spat the words at him, reaching for his cold beer and chugging half of it in one go. “You know what? Let me give you the god’s honest truth. I should’ve stayed. I should’ve chosen her over Destitute.”
He stilled, then wrested the beer from my grasp and finished the rest of it. Staring silently and contemplatively out at the L.A. skyline, Jared seemed to make his decision and waved his hand dismissively. “That’s bullshit too. If Liz really loved you, she would’ve moved with you instead of doing what she did. Now you wanna trade all this for that.”
“Get the hell out of my house, Jared,” I growled, grabbing the empty beer bottle from the counter where he’d put it and throwing it at the wall behind him. It smashed and shattered with a satisfying crash and fell to the ground.
“What, I can’t tell it like it is?” he asked defiantly, squaring his shoulders and crossing his arms. I mirrored his stance.
“No, you can’t. Not in my house. Now get. The fuck. Out. Now.” Our standoff continued for a couple of more seconds, neither of us blinking or flinching.
“This isn’t just your business anymore, you know? You need to confront things, and if I have to force you to do it, so help me god, I will.” Determination steeled into his eyes. I knew there would be no changing his mind, no sidetracking him once he got like this.
But more than that, I also knew that he was right. There were things inside of me that were seriously fucked up, things that I needed to face head on if I was ever going to be able to move on.
“You’re right. I do need to confront my past, and I’ll do what I need to do, but you need to stay out of it. You’re not right about it not only being my business anymore. It still is, and I’ll deal with it.”
“You swear it?” Jared asked, still not moving.
His dark eyes, my eyes, our dad’s eyes, bored into me. “I do.”
“Fine, I’ll leave you to it then.” Finally, his arms dropped to his sides, and he spun around to leave. Pausing in the wooden frame of the door, he tapped twice and turned around to face me. “But bro, you better get this done. And whatever happened with Kelly, fix it or let it go.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
Jared flipped me off, tapped the doorframe again, and left me to my thoughts. As shitty as his company had been, at least it was better than my own.
Chapter 18
Kelly
Heavy banging on my door roused me from the nightmare I was having where I was running but not getting anywhere. It’d been the same one for a couple of days now. Since Caleb had stormed out. I’d been trying to come up with a meaning for it, but all I could think of was how hard I was chasing Caleb and how far I was willing to go for him and how he’d thrown it all back in my face.
Never getting anywhere? That was certainly how I felt. I buried my head in my pillow on the couch where I’d fallen asleep again the night before and hoped that whoever was at the door would leave me alone.
Unfortunately for me, that wasn’t to be. Alicia started calling from outside, banging on the door so hard that if I didn’t get up and let her in, my neighbors were sure to file a noise complaint. Reluctantly, I groaned and rolled off the couch to let my meddling sister in.
If she was here when the band were days away from leaving, it meant that Caleb and I had been found out. I wasn’t even at the door yet, and my cheeks were already beet red, the heat from them blossoming down my jaw and neck to my chest.
Taking a fortifying breath when I reached the door, I opened it to find Alicia waiting with worry in her eyes and her face drawn. I must’ve looked as bad as I felt because as soon as she saw me, she drew in a sharp breath and flung her arms around me.
“Thank god you opened up. I was about to call Jared to come pick the lock.” She spoke into my hair, her one hand immediately winding into it to stroke it like she used to when we were little and I was upset. “Are you okay?”
Tears I thought I didn’t have left to shed stung my eyes, but I blinked them back and swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I’m okay. I’m just embarrassed, I guess.”
“How did this happen? Wait, actually. Start at the beginning. What happened?” My sister’s voice was soft and understanding as she released me, blue eyes sweeping mine before she led me to the kitchen, made us each a cup of tea, and then sat me down. “Right, go. Tell me the whole sordid tale.”
And so I did, ending with Caleb walking out on me almost a week ago. I kept of lot of details private, not only the sexual stuff, but a lot of the things that we’d talked about that I didn’t think Caleb would’ve wanted broadcasted.
“And that’s it. I haven’t heard a word from him since. I don’t think I’m going to, either.”
Alicia was wide eyed and quiet as she processed everything I’d said. “Okay, well I’m going to take a pragmatic approach to start with. What are you going to do about GNM?”
“GNM?”
“Your employer?” Alicia prompted me, though I still didn’t quite get what they had to do with anything. “You’re going to have to choose, or at least, be upfront with them about sleeping with one of your subjects. They’re fine with gonzo journalism, so maybe it’s not the end of things.”
Ugh, I hadn’t even thought of that prospective screw up. The profile I was doing on Caleb was my first subject profile for Gathers No Moss, and I’d gone and slept with said subject. And then he dumped me.
Or no, actually. He didn’t dump me because we were never even together to begin with. I’d jeopardized a fantastic opportunity with my brand-new employer, and for what? A couple of orgasms and a fake sense of mutual affection.
It was clear that Caleb felt nothing for me, and yet, when I thought about the time we’d had together, and the last time specifically, it couldn’t all have been in my imagination. Though I didn’t think that my employer would care about that little detail.
Grabbing my pillow, I buried my face in it and suppressed the urge to scream before lifting my head once I’d regained my composure. “I don’t even know what to say to that. It could be the end. I’m not sure.”
“And you and Caleb?”
I wished that I had the answer to that question. “I don’t know that either. I think it’s over. I pushed him too hard, but I was only trying to help. The road to hell, right?”